


Battle Fatigue

by Smokeybubble



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Deadlights (IT), Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Instability, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Sort Of, Stan Doesn't Though :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22964878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smokeybubble/pseuds/Smokeybubble
Summary: Eddie sets down his briefcase by the coat rack. He can tell without looking that the line between his eyebrows is tightening, pinching into the worried furrow that he always gets when he is anxious. He loosens his tie from around his neck.“Rich?” he calls.There’s no answer.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 34
Kudos: 230





	Battle Fatigue

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> I wrote most of this story back in November, and it took me SO LONG to finally finish it. I hope you guys enjoy it! I love Deadlight fics lol, so here's me throwing my hat in the ring, I guess.
> 
> TW: Canon-typical levels of violence, swearing. This fic is NOT supposed to be an accurate portrayal of mental illness, only my own interpretation of what can happen when fighting a shapeshifting, multi-dimensional clown.

~2017~

The moment Eddie opens the door to the apartment, he knows that it has been a Bad Day.

Their apartment is silent. Eddie can hear the soft rumble of cars passing by on the street below, the last remnants of rush hour traffic trickling home. It would almost be peaceful, if not for the awful, crushing silence that closes cold fingers around Eddie’s heart. Silence always means that it has been a Bad Day.

Normally, Richie will play music when he finishes work. Rock and Roll is his favorite, especially the loud, screechy shit that gives Eddie a headache. Artists like Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix are the usual suspects, but Richie’ll play anything when he’s in the right mood. Eddie has come home to The Clash, Lizzo, The Beatles, The Dixie Chicks, Cardi B, Barry White, Little Richard, Adele… Richie’s music tastes are eclectic, to say the least. Once, Eddie opened the door to the lilting notes of Debussy

_(although Richie claims that he was trying to set a **romantic** mood, okay Eds, I’m tryin’ to show you that ya man’s got **class** )_

and Richie had pouted when Eddie laughed so hard that he’d knocked over their coat rack.

Today, though, there is no music playing in the apartment. The silence, broken only by the _shush_ of car tires on the street outside, is choking. It is a physical pressure, pushing against Eddie’s ears and skin.

Eddie sets down his briefcase by the coat rack. He can tell without looking that the line between his eyebrows is tightening, pinching into the worried furrow that he always gets when he is anxious. He loosens his tie from around his neck.

“Rich?” he calls.

There’s no answer.

Eddie heads down the hallway.

The Bad Days don’t come as often as they used to. When they moved to L.A. after Derry, Richie returning home and Eddie carrying the few boxes that he’d managed to rescue from Myra’s clutching fingers, the Bad Days would come once a week. Two or three times, if they were unlucky. Now, a year and half after

_(Derry, the sewers, the clown, **the Deadlights** )_

everything, the Bad Days have eased up.

Now, they come only once or twice a month, and this gives Eddie hope that maybe, one day, they’ll won’t come at all. Maybe they won’t have to deal with this bullshit forever. Maybe Mike is right when he says that time cures all wounds.

Their apartment isn’t large, because even two successful guys in Los Angeles can only do so much when Richie demanded waterfront views _and_ to be close to the Santa Monica Palisade, but in times like this, Eddie still thinks they could downsize. It takes him long minutes to walk from the front door to the kitchen, turn past the hall that leads to their bedroom, and pad down the short flight of stairs that opens out into their living room.

It’s there that he finds Richie. Eddie knew that he’d find him there.

~2016~

Eddie scrambled over the rocks. His heart was thundering in his ears, almost drowning out the whooping, hysterical gasp of his lungs and the manic, choking screams of

_(Pennywise)_

the clown as it fell against the black spikes, thrashing and wailing, with Eddie’s fencepost driven through the back of its throat.

“Richie!” Eddie shouted.

He skidded down a short incline, pebbles spraying out from beneath his sneakers.

Richie was on his back at the edge of the cavern. His legs were splayed out on the rocky ledge, limp as a discarded ragdoll, and Eddie had _heard_ the crack as he’d landed, that wasn’t good, fuck. They weren’t kids anymore, okay, the knee problems alone that Richie might have from being dropped ten feet by a murderous space clown were fucking _uncountable_ , he could’ve torn his ACL or his meniscus or _both_ or he could’ve dislocated his patella or—

Pennywise shrieked again. The sound reverberated around the cavern, dislodging chunks of rock from the ceiling.

Eddie decided to worry about the murderous space clown first. He could worry about Richie’s old-man knees later.

He slid to a stop on the ledge where Richie was lying. Without thinking, he was crouching over Richie, putting himself between his friend and the writhing, skewered space demon behind him.

“Rich!” he said. He tapped Richie’s cheek, lightly at first and then harder. “Richie, wake up! I got him, man! I think I really got him!”

Richie’s eyelids fluttered. Beneath them, his eyes seemed to roll, moving restlessly from one side to another. At Eddie’s voice, Richie’s eyelids lifted to half-mast, and Eddie felt a thrill of terror spear through him when

_(why what’s happening his eyes they’re wrong something’s wrong)_

Richie didn’t respond. His eyes were rolled so far back in his head that Eddie couldn’t see his pupils.

“Richie! Wake the fuck up!” Eddie shouted. He patted at Richie’s cheek again, hard, more of a slap than anything else. “I think I hurt It, dude! Like, really hurt It!” And, despite his fear, a crazy, triumphant grin spread over his face, tugging at the dirty bandage on his cheek. “I think I killed It, dude!”

He risked a quick glance over his shoulder, towards where the clown was skewered on the jagged rock. It wasn’t moving.

“I think I—”

He turned back to Richie, but Richie’s eyes were open now. They weren’t white. They were back to brown, but full of such a determined, anguished terror that Eddie felt himself recoil.

Richie didn’t say anything. Eddie barely had time to hear the whistle of air behind him, to realize that something was wrong, wrong, _wrong,_ before Richie had grabbed his shoulders and thrown their weight to the side.

A massive, scorpion-like claw stabbed into the ground beside them. Shards of rock flew.

Richie rolled them again and Pennywise roared, slashing with his demon spider-claw until Eddie heard Bill’s voice shouting, then Ben’s, and Pennywise was distracted by whatever the fuck his friends were doing now.

“Richie,” Eddie gasped.

They’d rolled underneath a shallow outcropping. It was hardly protection, especially when Eddie had just seen Pennywise stab a two-foot crater through _solid granite_ , but it was better than nothing. Richie was above him, their bodies close in the tight space. Eddie could feel Richie’s warmth pressed against him. Their chests brushed as they inhaled together.

“Eds,” Richie croaked. “Eds. Eddie.”

Something wet fell onto Eddie’s face. Alarm burst through him – was Richie bleeding? But no. Richie was _crying_.

“Eddie,” Richie sobbed. “You’re okay. Are you okay?”

His hands moved, pawing over Eddie’s sides, and it took Eddie a moment to realize that Richie was feeling for injuries.

Eddie grabbed at Richie’s wrists. “What—am I okay?” he demanded. “You were just in the Deadlights, you idiot, are _you_ okay?”

“Eddie,” Richie said incoherently. Tears streaked down his cheeks. He patted at Eddie’s chest, pressing his fingers through Eddie’s shirt, and another sob tore out of him when he found no blood. “You’re okay,” he repeated. “You’re okay, Eds, you’re okay.”

Eddie shoved at his hands. “Of course I’m okay!” he shouted, frustrated. “Are _you_ okay? Goddamn it, Richie, don’t run _towards_ the demon clown alien, what the _hell_ were you thinking? Are you hurt?”

But Richie was already scrambling off of him. “C’mon,” he said. He held out a hand and helped Eddie to his feet. Out from under the ledge, Eddie could hear the shouts from Bev, Mike, and Ben, hear the roars and taunts as Pennywise scuttled between spires of rock. The cavern walls were dark, stretching up into shadow. They echoed back Bill’s yell as a massive reverberation rocked through the ground beneath them.

Panic gripped Eddie’s chest, squeezing his lungs. “What do we do?” he said. “Rich, the ritual didn’t work! We’re fucked!”

Richie pressed a fist to his forehead. “I can almost remember,” he muttered. His eyes were screwed shut behind his glasses.

“What?” Eddie demanded. He tugged at Richie’s arm. “What the hell does that mean? Rich, c’mon, we have to _move_ —”

“The leper,” Richie murmured to himself. “The leper. You figured it out, Eds.” He opened his eyes, and they were blazing.

“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Eddie said, completely bewildered. “I figured what out?”

Richie grinned. “I know how to kill that sloppy motherfucker.”

“ _What?_ ”

~2017~

Richie is sitting on the floor, facing the wide windows that look out towards the ocean. Behind the glass, Eddie can see the bright lights of the restaurants along the Boulevard, and the proud jut of the Santa Monica Pier in the distance. The ocean is a stormy gray expanse that darkens the horizon.

Richie is sitting in front of the windows, but he isn’t taking in the view. Eddie knows it, even before he sees that Richie’s head is turned, angled away towards the empty wall to his right. He’s staring blankly at the white drywall. He doesn’t move as Eddie comes down the stairs.

“Rich?” Eddie says softly.

Richie stares at the wall.

“Rich,” Eddie says again. There’s a heavy weight in his chest, pressing down on his lungs and making it hard to breath. Fleetingly, Eddie wishes for his old aspirator before pushing the thought away.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs and keeps his steps cautious as he approaches the windows. Richie hasn’t moved yet – not even a twitch. Eddie can’t tell yet if that means it’s a Not So Bad Day or a Really Bad Day. He hates it when Richie gets like this. He hates seeing the spark sucked out of Richie like a blown-out candle flame. It’ll come back, Eddie _knows_ it’ll come back because it always comes back. That doesn’t stop the fear from rising up in his throat, threatening to suffocate him every goddamn time.

But it will come back, Eddie reminds himself. It will. The Bad Days have been slowing down.

He swallows and steps around the couch into Richie’s line of sight. He knows better, now, than to touch Richie without warning when Richie gets trapped in his own head.

“Hey, Rich,” he says gently. “It’s me. How are you feeling? You remember me?”

Richie doesn’t look away from the wall. His head jerks though, ever so slightly, and Eddie knows that he’s heard.

Eddie takes that as an okay to come closer. He moves slowly, and when he reaches Richie, he crouches down in front of him, reaching out to take one of Richie’s hands in his own. Richie’s fingers are cold.

At the touch, Richie’s eyes snap up. They fix on Eddie, and Eddie suppresses the urge to flinch back, as he always does. Richie’s eyes are an opaque, milky white. It’s not like how they were in the Deadlights – not quite, anyway. Eddie can still see the brown of his irises beneath the film of the Deadlights. The white clouds Richie’s eyes like thin cataracts. Eddie can almost see the Deadlights growing, spreading over and through Richie’s eyes, shrinking back as Richie fights against them.

Eddie asked Richie once if he could feel them in his eyes, during the Bad Days. Richie had told him no, but Eddie wasn’t sure whether to believe him.

“Rich?” Eddie says again.

This time, as Eddie’s voice hangs between them, something – not recognition, nothing so aware. Animation, maybe? – lights up Richie’s face. “Eddie?” he says.

“That’s me.”

“Eddie!” Richie says, and a vacant grin stretches his lips. “Eddie-spaghetti! SpaghEdward! Spaghetti-man!”

Eddie can’t help the burst of relief that floods through him. Richie knows him. This isn’t a Really Bad Day, then. They’ve had those, the ones when Richie is so far gone that he can’t even speak. The ones that leave him hollowed out, dead-eyed and staring, only moving if Eddie forcibly positions him, like a wind-up toy with a broken spring. The ones that leave Richie crying, _screaming_ , cowering away from Eddie and shrieking “not real, you’re _not real_ ,” over and over again, as though Eddie is Pennywise risen from the grave to torture them once more.

It seems that today is not one of those days.

“Hey there, Rich,” Eddie says, smiling. The smile is tight and small, but it’s there. “Talk to me, pal. How are you doing?”

“Eddie-Bear!” Richie sings. He’s beaming, his eyes dopily half-lidded, but he frowns when Eddie sits in front of him, their hands still clasped together. “When’s Big Bill coming?”

Eddie strokes his thumb over Richie’s knuckles. It’s a good thing Richie was working from home today. He’s been doing a lot of writing, lately, working on a script for a T.V. show that HBO has already shown interest in airing. Thank God for small mercies. On several occasions, when Richie first got back to L.A., Eddie would get calls from Richie’s manager, demanding to know why Richie’s eyes had suddenly glazed over white. He’d had to pick up Richie from the studio on those days, sprinting out of work and driving like a maniac to get to Richie before he could hurt himself or anyone else.

Richie was always quiet after those days, angry and embarrassed that other people had seen him that way.

Both of them had agreed it was a good idea for him to take a break from stand-up, after the third time.

Richie tugs on Eddie’s hand. He’s frowning deeper. “When’s Billy coming?” he asks again.

“Bill lives in London right now, Rich,” Eddie tells him. “Remember?”

Richie looks at him with white, blank eyes. Then he laughs. “Good one, Eds! You weird kid. I bet he’s just down in the sewers again, right Staniel? Kid loves it down there.” He looks to the side, into the empty space to his left, and laughs again as though listening to a great joke.

Something twists in Eddie’s chest. “Richie,” he says. “Stan’s dead. There’s no one there.”

Richie looks up at him, smile gone, and tries to jerk his hand out of Eddie’s hold. “What are you talking about?” he says. “Are you blind, Eds? Stan’s sitting right there.”

~2016~

“To the death of that fucking clown!” Bev shouted. She toasted an imaginary glass in one hand, and the five men around her followed suit. Bill let out a whoop that reverberated around the walls of the quarry, and Richie splashed Mike in the face, cackling, until Mike tackled him and pulled them both under the water.

The tall quarry walls rang with shouts and laughter.

Eddie found himself in a water-fight, sitting on Ben’s muscular shoulders. It was a game of chicken, just like when they were kids, and across from them, Beverly was perched on Richie’s shoulders.

“Fight!” Bill shouted, and Richie surged forward, his arms locked around Beverly’s calves.

Beverly grabbed at Eddie’s arms. Eddie grabbed back, laughing, and Bev dug her fingers into the soft skin beneath his ribs where she knew he was ticklish. Eddie let go, fighting to push her away and keep his balance all at once, and Bev took the opportunity to shove him in the middle of his chest.

Ben’s grip on his legs slipped.

Eddie fell backwards, and he had enough time to suck in a breath before the cool, green waters closed over his head. Water moved, silky and smooth, over his skin.

Then he burst up from the surface, spraying drops everywhere, to find Richie and Bev in the middle of a complicated victory dance.

“Low blow, Beverly!” Eddie shouted. He wiped water out of his eyes.

Beverly grinned. She hip-bumped Richie, knocked fists with him, and flipped Eddie off over her shoulder. “Guess you don’t got what it takes to win, Kasprak,” she gloated.

Eddie flicked water in her direction. “Didn’t know we were using street rules, Marsh,” he shot back.

“Aw, Eddie’s sad that he doesn’t know how to fight dirty,” Richie said. He lifted Bev up into the air, and Eddie felt a momentary spike of jealousy, looking at Richie’s large hands wrapped around Beverly’s hips. He wondered what it would feel like, for those hands to rest on his own hips—

But a voice was in his ear, yelling “I’ll show him how to fight dirty!” and then Bill had swept his legs out from under him and dunked Eddie under the water once more.

“You’re all assholes!” Eddie spluttered, once he’d emerged into the clear air.

The day was hot and clean. The water from the quarry lapped against their skin, washing away the grime and blood left behind from Pennywise’s hell-cavern. The sunlight reflected off the surface of the lake, throwing prisms of color on the quarry walls and over their faces. Eddie found himself watching them catch in Richie’s dark eyes, turning the warm brown to hazel.

They splashed around for several hours. At one point, Eddie heard Mike wolf-whistle, and he turned to see Ben and Beverly breaking apart. Ben’s cheeks were cherry red.

“Finally!” Richie shouted gleefully.

Beverly flipped him the bird, but she was laughing too.

It was Eddie – of course – who suggested that they head back to the Townhouse. Quarry water was better than graywater, but it was still teeming with dirt and bacteria and who the fuck knew what else. It wasn’t a _shower_ , okay, and Eddie still had a goddamn hole in his face, in case anyone had forgotten. He didn’t need to contract some flesh-eating parasite and have one side of his face rot away.

They climbed out of the water into the warm sun. Their clothes were clinging to their skin, and Eddie glared when Richie told him that he looked like a drowned rat.

“You don’t look so hot yourself, asshole,” he retorted. “Don’t you ever get tired of being compared to a bug all your life?” He gestured at Richie’s glasses, and Bill snorted a laugh as he shook out his hair.

“Chicks dig glasses, Eds,” Richie said haughtily. Eddie waited for the snicker that would follow, or the obligatory joke about Eddie’s mom, but none came. Eddie glanced at Richie and saw that an odd expression – almost troubled – was crossing Richie’s face.

He waited, but Richie didn’t say anything further. “You okay, Rich?” Eddie asked.

Richie seemed to shake himself. “Yeah,” he said. “I—yeah. Fine.”

The other Losers were already heading up the slope, towards the trail that would lead them back to town.

“Okay,” Eddie said. He turned to follow them.

Richie caught his arm. “Eddie, I—would you hold on, just a minute?”

Surprised, Eddie searched his face. Richie was smiling, but it wasn’t his usual shit-eating grin. There was an undercurrent of nervousness hiding beneath, and Eddie felt his worry spike as he realized that Richie’s fingers were trembling where they gripped his bicep.

“Of course, Rich,” Eddie said. “What’s up? You okay?”

Richie let go of his arm but didn’t step back. He stared at the stretch of Eddie’s skin that he’d touched.

“Rich?” Eddie asked again.

“I have to tell you something,” Richie blurted out. His hands were jittering by his sides, and he shifted his weight between his feet as though it was taking all his strength not to cut and run.

“Alright,” Eddie said. He tried to sound calm, but he wasn’t sure he managed it. Alarm bells were ringing in his head. Was Richie alright? Had Pennywise done something before they’d killed the fucker for good?

“And—oh Jesus, let me finish before you say anything, okay?” Richie said. “This—I’m only gonna be able to say it once, and I’m already freaking out enough.”

Eddie resisted the impulse to take Richie’s hand, to smooth his thumb over Richie’s knuckles in an attempt to soothe him. “Okay,” he agreed. “I won’t interrupt.”

Richie nodded. He took a deep breath and bounced on the balls of his feet like a basketball player warming up before a free-throw. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, so. I had a realization. In the Deadlights.”

He must have seen the alarm on Eddie’s face, because he rushed to explain himself, hands out as though to stop Eddie from running to fetch the others. “Not like that!” he yelped. “Nothing related to clowns or child-eating demons! Not that! No. I— When I was in the Deadlights, I… I saw you die, Eds.” He looked away, towards the ground.

“Richie,” Eddie breathed.

“I saw you die,” Richie repeated, speaking loudly over Eddie, and Eddie remembered his promise and shut up. “And I—I saw what happened afterwards. I saw you die—” His voice broke and Richie stopped. He pressed a closed fist to his forehead.

Eddie didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, but he reached out and took Richie’s free hand in his own. “I’m right here, Rich,” he said quietly. “I’m not dead. You saved me.”

Richie shook his head. “I saw it happen in the Deadlights,” he said. “I saw it over and over again. And when I woke up for real, and you were still _alive_ —”

He stopped again.

Eddie squeezed his hand, feeling Richie’s cold skin beneath his fingers.

Richie looked at their joined hands. “I didn’t think I’d have a second chance at this, Eds,” he said, and his voice was no more than a rasp. “And after seeing you… Even if I’m terrified out of my fucking mind right now, I’ve gotta tell you this, because I think it’ll kill me if I don’t.”

He bit his lip. Deliberately, giving Eddie time to pull away, he turned his hand in Eddie’s so that he could thread their fingers together. When he met Eddie’s eyes, Eddie felt the air leave his chest in a soundless _huff_.

“I’m in love with you, Eds,” Richie said. His words shook. “I’ve been in love with you since we were kids, and I only remembered when I saw you standing in that stupid Chinese restaurant.”

Eddie didn’t move. He stared at their linked hands.

“I’m sorry,” Richie said, almost desperate. “I just— I was so fucking scared to tell you when we were younger, and then I fucking _forgot_ for thirty years because of that stupid-ass, skanky clown, but I—I think that maybe I knew deep down, you know? And then I watched you die in the Deadlights, and it fucking tore me apart, Eds. And I— I’ve been a fucking coward, not telling you, but I’m telling you now. I’m in love with you, Eddie.”

Eddie licked his lips. It didn’t make sense. What Richie was saying didn’t make sense. He’d seen Richie’s comedy specials on Netflix; in his most recent one, Richie had spent the first ten minutes joking about his girlfriend, and how he’d jerked off to her best friend’s Facebook page. Richie was _straight_. A strange feeling was opening up beneath Eddie’s feet, as though the ground was falling away but Eddie wasn’t falling with it.

_(“I don’t write my own material.”)_

Richie was _straight,_ for fuck’s sake. He’d been talking about fucking girls since he was twelve, what else could he be?

Except when Eddie gazed up into Richie’s face, Richie didn’t look like he was making a bad joke. His eyes were wide behind his massive glasses, so wide that Eddie could see a slim ring of white around his irises. Richie’s face was bone-pale. A fine sweat had beaded up along his hairline, and his hands were trembling. Richie looked _terrified_.

Eddie’s heart pounded in his chest. He searched for words, but what could he say?

( _I know we forgot each other for twenty-seven years, but I still remember cramming myself into the hammock with you just to get closer to you. I know I’m married, but I’ve watched every single one of your Netflix specials and I didn’t even know why. I know I act annoyed all the time, but it’s easier to be annoyed than to say—)_

But Eddie had been silent for too long. Before he knew it, Richie’s face had crumpled, and he had started to pull his hand out of Eddie’s hold.

“Fuck,” Richie said. “Fuck, I—I’m so sorry, Eds, I didn’t mean to— Don’t hate me, alright? It doesn’t mean anything, I shouldn’t have—”

He stopped as Eddie’s fingers tightened around his own.

“Richie,” Eddie said. “For once in your life, shut up, okay?”

He tugged Richie forward by his trapped hand and, despite the fact that they were covered in quarry-bacteria, despite the fact that neither of them had brushed their teeth all night and the Eddie had _never kissed a guy before holy shit what was he doing_ , Eddie tilted his head back and kissed Richie with everything he had.

~2017~

With a bit of effort, Eddie coaxes Richie up to sit on the couch. Richie’s stopped listening to him; he’s having a one-sided argument with someone that Eddie can’t see. Bev, maybe. He keeps mentioning _Street Fighter_ , and Bev was the only Loser who would go to the arcade with him to play.

Eddie sits next to him, holding one of Richie’s hands between both of his own.

“That’s bullshit,” Richie says. He frowns at the vacant space on the couch beside him. The white in his eyes seems to deepen for a moment, obscuring his irises entirely.

Eddie grips Richie’s hand tighter. “Rich,” he says. “Come back to me, man. Come on.”

“Geki is _obviously_ the coolest opponent,” Richie argues. “Don’t be dense, Adon is a goddamned sham. Geki literally has a _Wolverine_ _claw_ , what the fuck does Adon have?”

“Richie,” Eddie says again, more urgently. “There’s no one there. _Please_. Look at me.”

Richie doesn’t look at him, but the white fades and pulls back from the edges of his eyes. Eddie holds in a sigh of relief. He doesn’t know how much Richie can hear and understand him – it seems to vary from episode to episode, and sometimes Richie can’t remember what happened at all while in the remnants of the Deadlights – but he likes to think that his voice helps. If Richie can hear him, even a little bit, wherever he is, then Eddie will talk all night.

“How does pizza sound?” he asks Richie. There’s no telling how long it’s been since Richie last ate, but Eddie’s own stomach is growling, and there’s no way he’s letting go of Richie’s hand long enough to cook something.

“Is that a challenge?” Richie asks, narrowing his eyes at the couch cushions.

“Pizza it is,” Eddie says. He wiggles his phone out of his pocket and dials the number of the pizza place around the corner from memory. It’s his and Richie’s favorite.

He orders them a large “veggie lovers” pie, because he learned the hard way that Richie won’t eat meat when he gets lost in the Deadlights. The girl on the other end of the line tells him it’ll be about forty-five minutes, which is honestly flabbergasting considering that they live in _Los Angeles_.

“Pizza’s on its way,” he tells Richie after he hangs up.

Richie turns his head. “Eds?” he says, confused, and Eddie’s heart leaps.

He squeezes Richie’s hand. “Yeah, Rich? I’m right here. You back with me?”

“You’re dead,” Richie says, and Eddie’s spirits fall.

“No, I’m not,” he tells Richie, trying to keep his voice steady. “We won, remember? I didn’t die.”

“You did,” Richie says miserably, and all of a sudden, his milky eyes are swimming with tears. “I saw it. I had your blood in my mouth.” His hands seize Eddie’s forearms. Eddie jerks back, taken off guard, but Richie’s grip is strong. His fingers squeeze tight, too tight, strong enough to bruise. “I saw it,” he repeats, an expression of horror coming over his face. “I saw it, I saw it, I saw it, _I saw it, I saw it—”_

His voice rises, becoming a howl.

“Richie, it’s okay!” Eddie shouts, but Richie can’t seem to hear him.

“I saw it, I saw it, _I saw it!”_ he shouts.

His hold on Eddie’s forearms has turned from bruising to painful. Eddie stops attempting to free himself and instead reaches for the collar of his shirt, struggling to undo the buttons while Richie screams “ _I saw it!_ ” over and over again into his face.

At last, Eddie gets the front of his shirt open and drags their hands to his own chest. “I’m okay, Richie!” he yells. “Look! There’s no blood! There’s nothing! I’m okay!”

Richie’s breath shudders. He lets go of Eddie’s forearms and _lunges_ forward, pressing his palms to the smooth skin of Eddie’s chest. He’s told Eddie, before, what he saw in the Deadlights, how Pennywise’s claw had burst through Eddie’s torso. Now, he traces Eddie’s unharmed skin with a look of vacant bewilderment. Tears streak down his cheeks.

“I’m okay, Rich,” Eddie repeats, shivering at the feel of Richie’s fingertips skimming over his breastbone, his unsplintered ribs. “You saved me, remember?”

“I saw it,” Richie murmurs. He presses the flat of his palm against Eddie’s chest, and Eddie wipes the tear tracks from Richie’s face with the pads of his fingers.

“I know,” Eddie says. “But it wasn’t real. Whatever you’re seeing now, it isn’t real. Come back to me, Rich.”

Richie stares at him with his white, clouded eyes. Then his gaze drifts to the side, and his attention fixes again on the empty stretch of wall behind the couch.

Eddie bites his lip. All at once, he can feel his own tears beginning to rise up in his throat. It’s not Richie’s fault. He knows that. Richie didn’t ask to be trapped in some hell-alien daze.

That doesn’t make it any easier.

Eddie doesn’t resent Richie on these days. He _doesn’t_. He’s glad that he’s here to help Richie, to coax him back from wherever it is that he’s stuck. But. That doesn’t mean these days aren’t hard.

With Richie staring stupidly at the wall, Eddie leans forward and puts his face in his hands. He takes even, shaky breaths, and tries to push back the tears. He can’t cry right now. All he wants to do is curl up with his head in his boyfriend’s lap, and for the two of them to watch _The Good Place_ together while Richie strokes his hair and they chat idly about their days. He wants to cook dinner with Richie, snatching knives out of Richie’s hands when Richie pretends to slip while chopping carrots. He wants Richie to look at him, to smile at him, to _know_ him.

But that won’t happen tonight. Eddie keeps his face in his hands and tries to control himself, because Richie needs him to be strong. He can’t fall apart. Not tonight.

A light touch on his back makes Eddie startle. He lifts his head, and sees that Richie is looking at him. Richie’s expression is still distantly vacant, but a furrow has appeared between his eyebrows. He doesn’t say anything. His fingers flatten against Eddie’s shoulder, and he pauses, gaze drifting, before his palm smooths a circle across Eddie’s back.

“Richie?” Eddie says.

Richie doesn’t reply.

They sit there for long minutes, while Richie rubs gentle circles across Eddie’s shoulders, and Eddie does his best not to cry.

~2016~

When Eddie and Richie made it back to the Derry Townhouse, they found that the other four Losers had raided the liquor shelves behind the bar.

“Doesn’t anyone work here?” Eddie demanded.

Mike popped the top of a bottle of gin and slid it down the bar to Eddie. “Apparently not,” he said, and took a drink from his pilfered bourbon.

“If they didn’t notice an escaped psychopath hiding in one of their bathrooms and stabbing you in the face, they deserve to have their booze stolen,” Ben said amiably. He was perched on one of the stools, Bev leaning against his side, looking as happy as Eddie had ever seen him. He kept casting glances at her, wonder and adoration on his face.

“Where’d you two disappear to?” Bev asked. She eyed Richie and Eddie slyly.

“N-nowhere,” Eddie stammered.

Richie grabbed the gin from Eddie and took a healthy pull. “Eddie wanted to visit his mom, if you must know,” he said. “I had to tag along, it’d been too long since Sonia and I made sweet love—”

Eddie swatted him on the arm and stole back the gin. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” he said, scowling.

Richie grinned at him. “Is it time to get drunk?” he asked.

“No,” Eddie said. “It’s time to shower, _then_ get drunk.”

“Here, here,” Bill agreed, toasting Eddie with his glass of whiskey. The stutter was gone from his voice – one more sign that Pennywise was gone for good. Really gone. For what felt like the hundredth time, Eddie marveled at it. “If I never have to see another sewer drain, it’ll be too soon,” Bill said.

Eddie took a swig of the gin, grimacing at the taste. “Fuck graywater,” he said succinctly.

Bev lifted herself off of Ben’s lap. “I definitely have sewer gunk caked under my fingernails,” she said. She pulled the glass from Ben’s grip and took his hand. “Coming?” she asked him.

Ben went red. “I— Uh, y-yeah,” he said. “Let’s go?”

“Get it, Bev!” Richie called after them and cackled as Beverly gave him a rude gesture behind her back.

Bill was leaning against the counter, spinning his glass between his palms and speaking to Mike, who was standing behind the bar. Eddie watched them for a moment. They seemed distracted enough, he decided. He tugged on Richie’s shirt. “Hey,” he said.

Richie turned to him, a smile already rising to his lips, and Eddie flushed. Was he really about to ask this? “Do you, um—” He jerked his head towards the stairs. “With me?” he asked.

Richie’s eyes went wide behind his glasses. “O-okay,” he said, sounding just as flustered as Ben had a moment ago. “I – are you sure?”

A warm swell of fondness heated Eddie’s chest at Richie’s awkward uncertainty. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure.” His gaze travelled over Richie’s broad shoulders, and he swallowed against a sudden dryness in his mouth. “Definitely.”

Richie smiled, and it was a shy, quiet thing. “Alright then.”

He trailed Eddie up the stairs. Eddie hesitated for a moment by his own door, but Richie touched his shoulder and led him down the hall towards his own room. “There aren’t any blood-stains in my bathroom,” Richie pointed out, opening his door and waving Eddie through.

Afternoon sunlight was shining through Richie’s windows. It fell onto the ugly, brown bedspread, lighting the room in shafts of sun and shadow. Dust motes hung in the light, their lazy wanderings disturbed by Eddie’s entrance. Eddie could smell carpet cleaner, and the lingering scent of Richie’s cologne.

Richie closed the door behind them. He and Eddie looked at one another for a moment, and Eddie felt the fragility of this new… _something_ stretch between them.

“Hi,” Richie said at last, because he was a dork and would die a dork, no matter how his stupid comedy acts tried to prove otherwise.

“Hi,” Eddie said, because he was a dork too.

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the dust motes dance through the shafts of sunlight. Eddie was reminded of the fireflies that he and Bill used to catch, back in the hazy summers before Pennywise, standing in Bill’s backyard and waiting for the flash of their tiny lights.

Richie was the first to speak. “Did you mean it?” he asked. He shifted, anxious. “Did you really want to… shower? Like, together? ‘Cause I can wait, if you just wanna go, I’m not gonna make you shower in the tub where Bowers pin-cushioned you. I don’t wanna push you into anything you don’t want to—”

“Rich,” Eddie interrupted. He moved his gaze from the windows to Richie’s dark eyes. “I… I want to,” he said. He gave a tentative smile and stepped forward to take Richie’s hand, trying to erase the deer-in-headlights skittishness from Richie’s face. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t sure.”

Richie looked down at their entwined hands. He swallowed, and his thumb smoothed over Eddie’s knuckles. He repeated the motion twice before his thumb paused. It rested against the groove of Eddie’s gold wedding band. “What about this?” he asked, voice careful.

Eddie lifted their joined hands between them. The weight of the gold was heavy around his finger, and he thought of the twin band that Myra wore. The guilt that he expected to feel was absent. He’d put a ring on her over ten years ago, and what had come of it? A medicine cabinet stuffed to the brim with pills he didn’t need. A constant, underlying misery, so ingrained in the pattern of his life that it had taken returning to Derry, had taken fighting a _psychopathic, shapeshifting clown_ , for him to remember that he had been happy, once. That Richie made him happy.

Without letting go of Richie’s hand, Eddie slipped the ring off his finger and tossed it on Richie’s dresser.

Richie made a sound low in his throat, almost a whimper. His thumb stroked over the now-naked skin. “Can I kiss you?” he whispered.

Eddie answered him by leaning forward and tilting his face up to Richie’s own.

Richie groaned into Eddie’s mouth, and it seemed as though his self-control fell apart with that kiss. His hands came up, gripping Eddie’s waist, and he pressed forward, encouraging Eddie’s mouth to open, for the kiss to deepen.

A rush of heat swept the length of Eddie’s body. His own hands came up, fingers tangling in Richie’s messy hair and cupping the back of his head. Richie kissed him, and Eddie swore that his hair stood on end and his toes curled in his shoes.

Fuck, why was he still wearing _shoes?_

He pulled back from Richie, gasping, with his cheeks hot and pink. “Strip,” he ordered. “Fuck – right now.”

Richie’s hands tightened around his waist. His lips were slightly swollen, and he had to blink several times before the dazed expression left his eyes. “I – uh… Fuck, Eds, are you sure? We can go slow—”

“Fuck slow,” Eddie snapped. “It took us twenty-seven years to get here, I’m fucking done with slow.” He reached for Richie’s shirt, fumbling at the buttons.

Richie laughed breathlessly. “Fuck, Eds,” he said. “I didn’t know you were going to be so bossy. That is fucking _hot_.”

Eddie, already halfway done with Richie’s buttons, scowled up at him. “You—” he began, but Richie cut him off with a kiss that made Eddie’s blood sing beneath his skin. “Fuck!” Eddie moaned, when Richie pulled back and slid his hands under Eddie’s shirt.

“If you want,” Richie murmured against his throat. Eddie gave an embarrassing whine that he was sure he’d _never_ made before in his life.

It took them awhile to make it to the shower, but that was alright.

~

Eddie woke the next morning to thin sunlight streaming between the gaps in Richie’s curtains. The room was filled with a soft, golden glow, and Richie’s arm was thrown across Eddie’s bare chest. Outside, the hallway was quiet. It was just after dawn; Eddie had always been an early riser.

Richie’s face was turned away from him, one cheek smashed down into the pillow. Eddie smiled at the sight. He lifted a hand and carded his fingers through Richie’s hair, simply because he _could_ , now. Richie’s hair was soft under his touch.

God, what would Myra say, if she saw this? Eddie fought down a simultaneous urge to laugh and a matching swell of shame. She probably wouldn’t say anything. She’d probably just start screaming.

Eddie closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about Myra, and what a disaster that was bound to be. He traced a finger down the bare curve of Richie’s spine, feeling the bumps of Richie’s vertebrae. It didn’t matter. He was done settling for unhappiness. What would Richie say, if Eddie told him that he was thinking about moving out to Los Angeles? The thought had been nudging at the back of Eddie’s mind since yesterday. There was nothing for him in New York, not really. A wife who didn’t love him, not in the way he wanted to be loved. A job he'd taken because it had been convenient.

He was sure he could find a new job out in L.A. And L.A had, well. It had Richie.

Eddie turned and stifled his grin in the nape of Richie’s neck. “Hey,” he whispered. “Rich. Wake up. I’ve got an idea that I want to ask you about.”

He waited for Richie to stir. He waited for Richie to roll over and squint up at Eddie with bleary affection.

“Rich,” Eddie repeated.

Richie didn’t move.

Unease began to coil in Eddie’s stomach. “Rich,” he said, louder. “Wake up, asshole.” He shook Richie’s shoulder, and when there was still no response, he tugged until Richie rolled over onto his back.

Eddie stifled a scream.

Richie’s face was slack. His eyes were open, and a thick film of white glazed across his pupils, hiding them from sight.

~2017~

Their door chimes while Richie and Eddie are in the kitchen, and Eddie ducks into the front hall to buzz the pizza delivery into the building.

When he comes back, Richie is sitting just where Eddie left him, in a stool at the kitchen island with one hand clenched around their salt shaker. It’s one half of a stupid novelty set that Richie had fallen in love with one day, when he and Eddie had stumbled into one of the hipster curio shops near the Palisade. The shakers are shaped like pigs, with pink porcelain and bugging, cartoonish eyes. The salt shaker pig is positioned on all fours, but the pepper shaker pig is up on its hind legs with its front hooves slightly extended. When the two pieces are pushed together, it looks as though the pepper pig is fucking the salt pig doggy-style on their granite counter.

Richie had cackled like a lunatic when he saw them on the shelves, and Eddie had refused point-blank to allow the pigs anywhere near their home. Richie had bought the pigs when Eddie’s back was turned.

Richie’s right hand is wrapped around the salt pig. His large knuckles nearly obscure the pig’s goofy expression. As Eddie comes back into the kitchen, he is just in time to watch as Richie turns the shaker upside down and pours a white stream of salt over the counter.

“Hey!” Eddie says. He hurries forward, but Richie is already setting the shaker down.

“Stan likes baths,” Richie says absently. His eyes are fixed on the bowl of their sink. “He likes that they make him feel clean.”

Eddie pries his fingers from around the salt shaker and sets the porcelain pig out of reach. “He did used to like them,” Eddie says, watching Richie’s face. “He used to take them all the time, when we got done playing in the Barrens. Remember?”

“He doesn’t like messes,” Richie said. His voice was almost sing-song, but it was impossible to tell whether he was agreeing with Eddie or only continuing whatever thought was in his mind. With the pads of his fingers, Richie scraped the salt into a pile on the counter. “He likes baths and he doesn’t like messes, but then he made a mess in the bath, didn’t he? Blood on the walls and on him, just like Bevvie had.”

Eddie swallows. “Don’t talk like that. Rich,” he says. The memory of Stan sends an aching sadness through his core.

“Messy, messy Stan,” Richie sings, and his fingers draw lines through the salt.

“Stop,” Eddie says, and he can’t keep the anger from his words. It snaps in the air between them. “Don’t fucking talk about him that way. Do you even hear yourself?”

Richie doesn’t lift his head, and Eddie fights down a burn of guilt. Of course Richie doesn’t know what he’s saying. Richie would _never_ talk about Stan that way if he was in his right mind. What’s chilling is the childlike lilt to Richie’s tone. Eddie leans over Richie’s shoulder, and sees that Richie has drawn the crude outline of a spider through the salt.

Without a word, Eddie gets a sponge and wipes up the pile.

Richie doesn’t protest.

A knock echoes at their front door, and Eddie almost jumps out of his skin before remembering the pizza. “One second!” he shouts in the direction of their entryway. Then, he turns to Richie. “I’m going to go pay for the delivery,” he says, in a low, even tone. “Okay, Rich? I’m going to come right back. Don’t move while I’m gone, okay? I mean it, Rich. _Don’t move_.”

If Richie hears him, he gives no sign of it. He traces the outline of a spider again into the counter’s surface, unbothered that the salt has been cleaned away.

Eddie bites his lip. After a moment’s hesitation, he picks up the knife block and tucks it into one of the lower cabinets, out of Richie’s line of sight. Just in case.

There’s another knock at the door, and Eddie hurries into the front hallway, pulling his wallet from his pocket even as annoyance spikes through him. Fucking impatient delivery kid. It’s not like they’re doing anything else with their night.

Still, Eddie does his best to past on a smile as he pulls the front door open. “Hi. Sorry for the wait,” he says.

The girl outside is young, maybe seventeen. Her make-up can’t quite hide the smattering of acne across her chin, or the boredom in her expression. “One veggie?” she asks.

For a moment, she almost looks like Greta Keene, with her blonde hair and the way her eyes flick dismissively over Eddie’s face. Eddie half-expects her to snap her bubble gum and call him a loser.

“Uh, yes,” he says. The memory slides away from him, and it’s just another teenage girl standing in his doorway, a pizza delivery box slung over her shoulders. Eddie fumbles for his wallet. “How much?”

“$19.85,” the girl says. “You know you can pay online, right? That’s what most people do now. It’d save you the trouble of trying to pay in cash.”

Eddie takes two tens and a five out of his wallet and hands it to her. “Guess I’m old fashioned,” he says, smiling.

The girl shrugs and tucks the money into her shirt pocket. As she’s peeling back the Velcro on the insulated pizza bag, a noise comes down the hall from behind Eddie.

 _Shit_.

Eddie turns around. Richie is standing at the far end of the hallway, one hand pressed against the wall as though for balance. Even from this distance, Eddie can see the misty whiteness of his eyes.

“Richie!” Eddie calls out. His voice is sharp. “Go back into the kitchen. I told you to stay put, remember?”

Richie doesn’t listen. He takes shuffling steps down the hall, but with his long legs, it’s only a moment or two before he’s standing behind Eddie in the entryway.

“Richie, go back,” Eddie tells him. His heart has started thumping. He’s not worried that Richie is going to attack the girl or some shit like that – _God_ no, Richie isn’t dangerous. Even out of his mind like this, Richie would never do something like that – but Eddie wouldn’t put it past him to start babbling nonsense, or to try to slip out of the apartment and wander off.

Besides, Richie looks… almost frightening. Eddie hates to admit it, but he does. His white eyes are wide and blank. His jaw is hanging open, only slightly, but enough to give him a stupid, half-witted appearance, as though he doesn’t have the presence of mind to close his own mouth. His shoulders are stooped, and he moves in a jerky, shambling fashion, almost puppet-like.

To her credit, the delivery girl doesn’t seem bothered. She probably sees stranger people than Richie all the time during her shifts. It is Los Angeles, after all. Maybe she thinks Richie is on drugs. She finishes undoing the Velcro and slides the pizza box out of its insulated bag.

“Richie, _go back_ ,” Eddie says again. He gives Richie a light push on the chest to get his point across, but Richie isn’t listening. He’s staring past Eddie at the delivery girl.

“Eddie,” he says, in a hoarse whisper. “What’s wrong with her face?”

Eddie gives up on pushing Richie back and snatches the pizza box from the girl’s hands. “Sorry about that,” he says, his face flaming red, before slamming the door on her startled expression.

“Eddie,” Richie whispers again. His horrified gaze is fixed on the now-closed door. “What was wrong with her _face?_ ”

“There wasn’t anything wrong with her, Rich,” Eddie says. He ushers Richie back towards the kitchen, pizza box held in front of him, but Richie doesn’t go. His back hits the wall, and all of a sudden Eddie realizes that Richie is overwhelmingly, mind-numbingly _terrified_.

“Didn’t you see it?” Richie says. His voice trembles. “Eddie, her face. Oh god, her face.”

Eddie drops the pizza onto the foyer table and lunges forward to catch Richie just as Richie’s knees buckle. He gets a hand in Richie’s shirt, but he isn’t fast enough to stop Richie from hitting the floor with a hard _thud_. “Richie, it’s okay!” Eddie says desperately.

Richie is shaking his head. His long legs flail, pushing him back into the corner between the wall and the door. He pulls his knees up, knocking Eddie away, and buries his head against them, covering the back of his head with his arms. “Her face,” he moans. “Oh god, Eddie, it was – it was _rotting away_ , couldn’t you see it?”

Eddie puts his hands on Richie’s bent knees. He rubs circles with his thumbs through the fabric of Richie’s pants. “It wasn’t real,” he tells Richie, even as his own voice wobbles. “Her face was normal, Rich. It’s okay. It wasn’t real.”

Something inside his chest aches as Richie shakes his head, pressing his forehead into the tops of his thighs and making himself smaller than Eddie would’ve believed possible.

“Her face,” Richie whispers. “I saw it. She had maggots in her eyes, but her eyes were gone. She was smiling at me.”

Carefully, trying not to jostle Richie more than necessary, Eddie crams himself into the space between Richie and the foyer table. It’s a tight fit. Richie’s left side is pressed against Eddie’s right, and Eddie can feel the shivers that wrack Richie’s body, but Eddie wriggles until he can fit an arm over Richie’s hunched shoulders. He wraps his other arm around Richie’s chest and pulls him in, cradling Richie as best he can.

Richie falls easily against him. He lets go of his head to ball his fingers in Eddie’s shirt, and he buries his face in the crook of Eddie’s shoulder. “I saw it, Eds.” He whimpers.

“I know, Rich,” Eddie says sadly. “I know you did. She’s gone now. You’re safe.”

Richie presses into Eddie’s side, and doesn’t answer.

~2016~

Eddie didn’t remember stumbling out of Richie’s room, but he must have done it because there he was, pounding on the door to Bill’s room and praying to whatever god that Bill was inside.

“Bill!” he shouted. “Bill, open the fucking door! Bill, please, I need some fucking help out here!”

He hammered at the door in such a frenzy that, when Bill finally swing it open, Eddie almost smacked Bill in the face with his closed fist.

“Eddie?” Bill said. He was rubbing at his eyes with one hand. “What the hell are you—”

He yelped as Eddie seized hold of his wrist and dragged him out into the hallway.

“It’s Richie!” Eddie shouted. His voice was too loud, but he couldn’t care. There was a frantic, stinging terror under his skin, tightening his throat and making his thoughts run in meaningless, panicked loops around his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him, you’ve got to come—”

Bill dug his heels in and put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Eddie, calm down,” he ordered. “Just take a breath, okay? Tell me what’s going on.” His gaze swept over Eddie as though checking for injuries. He frowned. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

Eddie wanted to shake him. “It’s Richie!” he repeated. Down the hall, he heard another door open, and then quick footsteps as Beverly left her room, belting a robe over her pajamas. Ben followed after, alarm on his face and a grim set to his lips.

“What about Richie?” Bill demanded.

“Is it Pennywise?” Ben asked at the same time.

“It’s— He— I don’t know!” Eddie said. “Just— His eyes are all blank, and I can’t wake him up!”

Bev didn’t bother asking any questions. She took one look at Eddie and headed for Richie’s room, brushing past Bill, who hadn’t quite caught up to the situation. Eddie didn’t think he’d ever loved Bev more than in that moment.

The three men followed her to Richie’s room. Eddie made it through the doorway just as Bev crouched by the side of the bed.

“Richie? Honey?” she said. “Talk to us, what’s going on?”

Eddie knew the moment she saw. The color drained from her cheeks and she snatched her hand back from Richie’s shoulder with a gasp. “Bill!” she said, in a choked voice. “Oh my god, his—his _eyes_.”

In a moment, Bill was over the bed. He blanched as he took in Richie’s sightless stare. “What the hell?” he said.

“It looks like…” Bev whispered.

“The Deadlights,” Ben finished.

Eddie’s knees wobbled, and Ben put an arm around his shoulders to steady him. “What— We got him out,” Eddie said. “He was _fine_ last night. How could it have come back?”

Bill shook Richie by the arms, gently at first and then harder. He swore when Richie didn’t react. “C’mon, Rich,” Bill said. “Wake up!” His voice had the bite of authority that Eddie remembered, the same one that had convinced Eddie to build a dam in the Barrens twenty seven years ago. The same one that had six other kids following him into the dark sewers below Derry, with no guarantee that they’d find their way out.

Bill drew back his hand, and Eddie shouted “hey!” just as Bill slapped Richie across the face with a violent _crack_. Ben’s arm around his shoulders prevented Eddie from jumping forward to protest.

Richie didn’t move. He didn’t blink.

Bill looked up at them, and Eddie saw the fear in his eyes before Bill hid it away. “Someone call Mike,” Bill said.

~

Mike lived twenty minutes away from the Derry Townhouse, and he tore into the lobby fifteen minutes after Ben placed the call.

He appeared in the doorway with a bag slung over his shoulder, and took in the scene with a strange, wary calm. Bev and Eddie were on the bed beside Richie’s prone body. Bev was holding one of Richie’s hands. Bill and Ben were hovering by the foot of the bed, their heads bent together and conversing in low voices.

When Bill saw Mike, he broke off his discussion with Ben and pulled Mike into a rough hug. “Please, tell me you have some idea about this,” he told Mike.

“First, I’ve gotta see what ‘this’ is,” Mike said. He handed his bag to Bill and came around the side of the bed so that he could crouch down and peer into Richie’s empty face. He sucked in a breath when he saw Richie’s eyes.

“I think you guys are right,” he said. “It sure looks like the Deadlights.”

“But how is that possible?” Ben asked. “Eddie got Richie out of them. And we _saw_ them go out, when we killed It.”

Mike shook his head. “I don’t know.” He looked at Beverly. “You’re the only one of us who’s been in the Deadlights before. Did anything like this ever happen to you? When you had visions of our deaths, maybe?”

Slowly, Bev shook her head too. “No,” she said. “Not that I know of. Those were dreams. I never fell into… Into a trance, or whatever this is.”

“This doesn’t make sense!” Eddie cried. “It’s _dead_. Whatever the Deadlights did, their effects should be over!”

“Is It dead?” Ben asked quietly.

“Yes.” Mike and Bill spoke at the same time.

“We felt It die, Ben,” Mike said. “We all felt It’s heart stop.”

“Well, then what does this mean?” Bev said, gesturing to Richie’s eyes. “That can’t be anything but the Deadlights!”

“Did anyone try kissing him?” Mike asked. His gaze was turned up in thought.

“ _What?_ ” Eddie spluttered.

Mike gave him a wan smile. “Well. That’s how we got Beverly out of them, the first time. Remember? Ben kissed her, and she woke up.”

“We really don’t have to keep bringing that up,” Ben mumbled. He rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks flaming red.

Bev stretched out her other hand to catch Ben’s fingers, and Ben reached out shyly to take it.

“No,” Bill said. “I guess we haven’t tried that yet.”

“Are you all nuts?” Eddie said. “This isn’t a goddamned Disney movie!”

Beverly shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s worth a shot, if it’s the only thing that’s worked before.”

An awkward silence fell over the group. Eddie was seething. This was their best plan? A half-assed hope that a kiss would wake Richie up? As though he’d pricked his finger on a spindle, instead of getting mind-blasted by some evil, space-alien floodlights. Eddie ground his teeth together, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. There was something else churning behind his breastbone, something behind the anger that felt a hell of a lot like fear, but Eddie shoved it away. He wasn’t _scared_ , fuck that. He was done letting Pennywise and this fucking town scare him. Being scared wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Richie.

It took a moment for him to realize that everyone was staring at him.

“What?” Eddie snapped.

Ben shifted, uncomfortable. “Well, uh,” he said. “Don’t you think you should be the one to try it, Eddie?”

Eddie tried and failed to stop his jaw from dropping open. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he asked. He hoped no one noticed how strangled his voice had become.

“Well.” Bill coughed into his elbow. “You, uh, you were sleeping in here, right? I mean, unless you somehow came into Richie’s room at five-thirty in the morning after he locked it for the night.”

“While _shirtless_ ,” Beverly added. She was trying to sound serious, given the situation, but she couldn’t quite hide her smile behind her hand.

Eddie opened his mouth. He scrambled to think of some reasoning that could satisfy them, because Jesus, Richie had been holding onto this secret for _decades_ and he didn’t deserve to be outed like this. Fuck, Eddie had barely had time to think about his own sexuality, he didn’t even know what he was outing himself _for_. Was he gay now? Bi? He worked his jaw for a moment, then closed it. Opened it again.

“It’s not—” he began.

“It’s okay, Eddie,” Bev said. She let go of Ben to put her hand over Eddie’s. Her fingers squeezed his, just a little.

“Yeah,” Ben added. “It’s 2016, guys. We wouldn’t have cared back in the ‘80’s, even.” He gripped Eddie’s shoulder, and his touch was warm and supportive. “Love’s love, you know?” He looked at Beverly with soft eyes.

“I… You guys really mean that?” Eddie asked. He glanced over his shoulder. “Bill? Mike? I don’t want to—”

He broke off.

Bill quickly dropped his hand. Mike blushed, but he wasn’t fast enough to slide his wallet back into his jeans.

Eddie stared at the two of them.

Neither of them met his eyes.

“Bill,” Eddie said.

Bill coughed again, his own face now bright red. “Uh. Yes, Eddie?”

“Please tell me,” Eddie said slowly, “that you guys didn’t just _settle a bet.”_

Behind him, he heard Ben smothering laughter in his sleeves.

If possible, Bill’s cheeks went redder. “Uh…” he stammered.

“About _Richie and me?_ ”

“I won,” Mike said, grinning.

“Jesus Christ.” Eddie buried his face in his hands. He breathed deep for a second or two, until a light brush of fingers on his shoulder brought him back.

“Hey,” Beverly said to him. She gave him a smile, but it was small. Sadness pulled at the corners of her mouth. “I know this is probably confusing. And new. And shitty, that you have to wrestle with all of this. But we love you guys, no matter what. And Richie needs you, right now. Maybe it’ll work, and you can go back to worrying about your midlife sexuality crisis instead of demon clowns.”

Despite himself, Eddie laughed. “Right,” he said. “That’d be the dream, wouldn’t it?” He dug his knuckles into the corners of his eyes, steeling himself.

“Okay,” he whispered.

He stood from the bed and came around the side, to where Richie’s head was resting limp on his pillow. Richie’s white eyes stared upwards, unseeing. His expression was blank.

Eddie bent over him, feeling stupid. Maybe this had worked for Ben when they were kids, but that was a long time ago, back when they were hopped up on movie theater popcorn, sour candies, and a child’s naïve, fearless belief of invincibility. Of immortality. Before the endless drag of time wore them down, introduced them to loneliness and disappointment and heartbreak. Before life chewed them up and spit them out, showed them that, yes, you could get hurt. Yes, you could die. Yes, despite your friendships and your love and your boundless, encompassing faith in your own importance, you could be forgotten.

It had been a long time since Eddie had believed in his own invincibility.

He looked into Richie’s silver, empty eyes.

_(“You’re braver than you think,” he’d said.)_

_(“I’m in love with you, Eddie,” he’d said.)_

Yes, Eddie thought. It had been a long time since he’d held that childish conviction. But something about Richie made him feel invincible nonetheless.

Eddie leaned down and pressed his lips to Richie’s.

It was nothing like the kisses they’d shared last night. Richie’s lips were cold. Unmoving. It wasn’t a deep kiss, no more than a brush of lips, but Eddie couldn’t hold back a shudder. Richie was so _still_. Richie was a creature of noise and movement. He was never supposed to be still. Eddie had no idea how Ben had done this for Beverly, years ago, both of them covered in dirt and graywater and Ben scared shitless in the dark sewers.

Eddie held the kiss for a second longer, then withdrew.

“Richie?” he said, hating the hope that swelled in his throat.

Beside him, Beverly folded one of Richie’s hands between both of her own. “Wake up, Richie,” she murmured.

Eddie could hear someone muttering behind them, Mike or Bill, maybe. “Wake up, Rich, c’mon,” he murmured. “C’mon, Richie.”

Silence settled over the six of them.

Richie didn’t stir.

~2017~

When Eddie finally gets Richie up and off the floor, he drags them both to the kitchen and sets Richie down on one of the counter stools. Richie looks exhausted; his eyelids are drooping, and he slumps on the stool before Eddie gets a shoulder under him to prop him up.

“I’m just going to get the pizza, okay, Rich?” Eddie says. “I’ll be right back.”

He’s not sure if Richie understands him or not, but Richie does lean his own weight against the counter, allowing Eddie to slip out from his side and hurry into the hallway to snag the abandoned pizza box. It’s only gone a little cold, so Eddie sets aside two pieces for himself and pops another slice into the microwave for Richie.

“How’re you doing over there?” he asks. The microwave dings. Richie is propped up on his elbows, gazing down at the polished granite counter.

“M’tired, Eds,” he says. His voice is a cracked rasp.

Eddie is so shocked that he almost drops his plates. “Richie?” he demands.

He sets the plates down and grabs Richie’s shoulder so that he can peer into Richie’s face. Richie’s eyes are a thin, hazy gray. The Deadlights are still there, a pale sheen across Richie’s irises, but Eddie can see the brown that is fighting to show through. As Eddie grips his shoulder, Richie sways forward. He rests his head against Eddie’s stomach. On reflex, Eddie’s hand comes up to cradle the base of Richie’s skull, and Richie sighs, soft and quiet, into the fabric of Eddie’s shirt.

“M’tired, Eds,” he repeats.

“I know,” Eddie says. His voice shakes, and he’s not sure whether it’s relief that the Deadlights might finally be retreating, or the sudden crash of his own exhaustion. “You have every right to be.”

He cards his fingers through the hair that curls at the nape of Richie’s neck. “Can you eat a little for me? Then we can go to bed. Promise. I’ll call off work tomorrow. How does that sound? We can go to the beach.”

“The beach,” Richie echoes. He sounds like a little kid again, his words slurring with exhaustion. “I’d like that. Can Bill and Stan come?”

Eddie strokes his hair again. “Not this time, babe,” he says, and swallows back the noise that tries to escape him when he thinks about Stan.

“Okay,” Richie whispers.

“You wanna eat?” Eddie asks him. “C’mon. I know you’re hungry.”

Together, they prop each other up at the counter, and Eddie helps Richie to cut his pizza with trembling hands and guide the fork to his mouth. Richie waits patiently while Eddie finishes his own slices, and after the dishes are put away, he allows Eddie to take his hand and lead him back towards their bedroom.

Richie’s hand is warm in Eddie’s own.

~2016~

The sunlight slanting in through the gaps in Richie’s curtains was growing stronger. As the sun rose, the room brightened from a pale, milky glow into the warm gold that came just after dawn. The squares of sunlight that crept through the curtains moved slowly across the floor, scurrying over the worn wood and up Richie’s bedspread like curious mice. One brushed Richie’s motionless fingers but received no response.

“Why didn’t it work?” Ben asked. He was sitting in the desk chair, head resting in one hand. His short hair was messy from bedhead, and it was further tousled as Ben raked his fingers along his scalp. “That should have worked, right?”

Bill was leaning on the desk beside him. “I thought so,” he said. The crow’s feet around his eyes seemed to have deepened in the past half-hour. “It’s all about belief, isn’t it? Eddie? Did you believe it would work?”

“I thought I did,” Eddie muttered. He was still perched on the bed beside Richie, looking down into Richie’s slack face. He’d taken one of Richie’s hands in his, glaring around at the others as though daring them to comment. No one had. Now, he stroked his thumb across Richie’s knuckles in smooth, gentle motions. “I—I guess I could try again? Maybe I wasn’t—”

“No,” Mike said. “I don’t think that’s it.” He was on the floor with his bag open beside him, various books spread out on the floor. He was paging through one – a big, leather-bound monstrosity, that was probably older than Derry itself – but his expression was tight with frustration. He closed the book and pushed it away.

“Well, what is it then, Mikey?” Eddie snapped. “This whole kissing thing was your idea in the first place.”

Mike drew a hand down his face. “It could be a lot of things,” he said. He gestured to Bev, who was standing in front of the drawn curtains. Spots of sunlight illuminated her skin. “When Beverly got caught in the Deadlights, she was a kid. Maybe it affects adults differently. We’re older. We’re more set in our ways, less prone to believe in magic. Maybe it’s more difficult for an adult mind to recover from.”

He shook his head. “Or maybe it’s because Pennywise knew he was about to die. It was fighting for Its life. Maybe It blasted Richie with everything It had, because It was scared. I don’t think it was as frightened of us the first time around. When it caught Bev, it didn’t know what we were capable of yet.”

Bev was nodding thoughtfully. “I remember It, before I saw the Deadlights,” she said. “And Mike’s right, it was different than how it was with Richie. With Richie, it was so… sudden. When It showed me the Deadlights, it was almost like a production. He was dancing and laughing. Like he wanted to scare me.”

The five of them were silent, digesting this.

“Well, what does any of that do for us now?” Bill asked. “How does that help us to snap Richie out of whatever the hell this is?”

Mike picked up his book with a troubled expression. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s not as if there’s a guide to eldritch monsters that we’re working off of. I’ll head to the library, maybe there’s something there that I overlooked—”

“That’s it?” Eddie burst out. “There’s nothing more we can do? Guys, we can’t just _leave_ him like this! We don’t know how long it’ll last! How are we going to feed him? Do we bring him to the hospital? He’s going to need fluids soon, who knows how long it’s been since he drank water—”

“Eddie,” Bill said. “Take a breath. Richie is going to be fine.”

“We can’t bring him to the hospital,” Ben said at the same time. “What would we even tell them? His eyes—”

“Well, we might have to,” Beverly argued. “We don’t have the capabilities to take care of him long-term, Eddie is right. And we can’t—”

“Everyone needs to calm down!” Bill said. “We don’t know that this is a lasting effect, maybe Richie can shake himself out of it, somehow?”

“We can’t count on that!” Eddie shouted. “I’m not just going to cross my fingers and hope—”

“We just don’t know enough!” Mike interrupted. “We can’t keep jumping to conclusions or half-baked plans—”

“Please don’t try to lecture us on half-baked plans, Mike,” Beverly said dryly. “Not after that ritual bullshit that didn’t even—”

“I said I was sorry!” Mike snapped. “Is now really the time—”

“Guys,” Ben tried. “Stop arguing, okay? It’s not getting us anywhere.”

“Neither is just sitting here!” Eddie said.

“We know that,” Bill said impatiently. “If everyone would just _calm down_ so we can talk about this—”

“Whatever you guys are arguing about, why the hell are you doing it in my room?” a new voice asked. “Can it wait until I’ve at least put some pants on?”

Their conversation stopped.

The hand in Eddie’s squeezed once, then yanked away. “What the hell are you all doing in here?” Richie asked.

Eddie scrambled around to face him, even as the room around them erupted into chaos. “Richie?” Eddie demanded.

Richie blinked back at him. His eyes – they were aware, they were brown, _oh god_ the Deadlights were gone, they were _gone_ – met Eddie’s, confused, with a hint of amusement and an undercurrent of fear. “Eddie?” he said. His voice was sleep-rough. Despite the noise around them, Eddie heard it clearly in the space between them. “Why is everyone in here? Are we finally having a group orgy like I’ve always dreamed about?”

“No,” Eddie said, half a laugh and half a sob. “You _asshole_.” He threw himself at Richie, wrapping his arms around Richie’s chest.

“Whoa!” Richie said. He caught Eddie around the waist but pulled back, his cheeks flaming red and panic in his face as he laughed nervously. His gaze darted between the other Losers. “What’s with the koala impression?”

“You missed some stuff,” Eddie muttered into his shirt. He could hear Richie’s heartbeat pounding steadily inside Richie’s chest. Eddie closed his eyes, listening to it.

Beside them, the bed dipped as someone’s weight settled onto the mattress, and Eddie heard Bill’s authoritative voice, asking Richie something, but Eddie wasn’t paying attention. He pressed his forehead to Richie’s chest.

What would he have done, if Richie hadn’t woken up? All this, it was so new to Eddie. He was a risk analyst, for fucks sake. When he married Myra, he thought for months about whether it was the right decision or not. He drew up pros and cons charts. He made spreadsheets for their likes and dislikes, their future hopes. In the end, he proposed because that was the ending that made sense. He had a job, and now he needed a wife. It was how things were supposed to go. Eddie wasn’t the type to fall in love at the tip of a hat. He wasn’t the type to consider _moving across the country_ because of one night of good sex.

But the breath-stealing fear when he’d seen Richie’s white eyes, the terror when Richie _wouldn’t wake up…_

Eddie didn’t know where these new emotions were coming from. He felt as though he’d taken his first deep breath of air in years. Maybe they’d been dormant, hidden beneath the forgetful haze of the past twenty-seven years. Maybe they’d been numbed by the pills that Myra insisted he needed. Eddie didn’t know. The emotions frightened him.

But they elated him too.

 _I’m in love with Richie Tozier_ , he thought to himself, and a smile curved his lips.

Whatever the hell was going on, these Deadlight echoes or something else entirely, nothing could change that. It had taken Eddie thirty years without love, had taken fighting an interdimensional clown _twice_ to get him where he was. Whatever these Deadlight echoes were, they’d figure it out. Eddie wouldn’t accept anything else.

~2017~

Eddie wakes the next morning to the pink light of dawn creeping through their high windows, and an empty bed beside him.

For a moment, all he knows is panic

_(Richie’s gone, Richie’s **gone** , what about the Deadlights, I thought it was over, oh god what if he’s hurt)_

until he sees the post-it note left on Richie’s pillow.

**Coffee’s ready. I’m outside.**

At the bottom of the note, there’s a tiny drawing of a heart, and, beneath that, a tiny drawing of a penis.

Eddie can’t help but smile.

He finds Richie on their tiny balcony that faces south. The hills of East Los Angeles stretch out to their left, and the wide, blue expanse of the Pacific unspools on their right. In the hazy dawn, the water is a soft patchwork of gold and gray.

Eddie slides open the balcony door with a whisper of sound, and Richie turns in his chair. A steaming cup of coffee is held in one hand. He’s got a ratty robe thrown on against the morning chill, and a shadow of stubble roughens his jaw. He looks strangely young in the pale dawn light. Eddie can almost see the round cheeks and narrow shoulders of the kid he used to be.

His eyes are clear and brown.

“Morning,” Richie says, and smiles at Eddie.

“Morning,” Eddie says. He thinks he might be choking from the love and relief that sticks in his lungs. It’s almost like asthma, but in another way, it’s not like asthma at all.

Richie holds out his hand, and Eddie steps forward to take it. He uses his free hand to tilt Richie’s chin up, and Richie lets him. He knows what Eddie is looking for. He knows that Eddie won’t settle down until he is certain.

Eddie stares into Richie’s eyes. His pupils are dark. His brown irises are warm and undeniable. Eddie searches, but he sees no sign of the Deadlights, none of their ghostly bloom.

“What’s the verdict, Doctor K?” Richie asks, after a moment. He’s still smiling, but he holds Eddie’s other hand tightly.

Eddie doesn’t answer, lost in Richie’s gaze.

At last, he clears his throat. “I’m sorry, dude, I think we’re going to have to amputate.”

Richie’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline, and his smile stretches into an exaggerated pout. “Oh, fuck,” he says. “It’s that bad, huh?”

Eddie shakes his head. “I’ve never seen such a serious case of genital herpes. I think drastic measures are our only option.” Without letting go of Richie’s hand, he drags over their other chair and sinks into it, close enough that his knees knock against Richie’s. The slanted sun sends their shadows long and spindly over the balcony railing.

“Pretty sure you’re just talking about castration, Eds,” Richie says good-naturedly. “You really want to deprive the world of my massive dick? It’s my best feature.”

“Your dick is like, a C plus, at best,” Eddie says. He bumps Richie’s thigh with his knees, and for a short stretch they both fall silent, staring out over the ocean and the city waking up below them. One or two wisps of cloud cling to the distant horizon, turned to burnished streaks of tempered bronze by the sun.

A car engine revs somewhere, several blocks away.

On a balcony, floors below them, a bird alights on a railing. It twitters briefly, music filling the air, before it loses interest and flies off.

Eddie can taste salt and exhaust on the cool morning breeze.

“How bad was it?” Richie asks, out of the blue. When Eddie glances over at him, he sees that Richie’s jaw is clenched.

Eddie considers as he strokes his thumb over Richie’s knuckles. “Not that bad,” he tells Richie. “Although the pizza delivery girl thinks you’re a meth head or something.”

Richie smiles, but it’s brittle. “She probably thought that anyway. Have you met me?”

Eddie snorts. “Unfortunately.”

Silence falls again for long minutes. If Eddie listens closely, he thinks he can hear the faint sounds of the surf against the sand, underneath the rising noise of traffic.

“Do you remember anything?” he asks.

Richie shrugs a shoulder. “Bits. Like always. It just seems like a dream now. I remember I was in the living room, trying to get some work done. Don’t know what time it was. And then my head started hurting and I was just… somewhere else.” He frowns, and Eddie rubs his thumb over the back of Richie’s hand. “It’s all jumbled,” Richie says. “Sometimes, I thought I was back in that cave, in the sewers. Sometimes I wasn’t anywhere I recognized, but it was so quiet and dark. I remember being confused.”

He takes a breath, and Eddie pretends that he doesn’t notice how shaky it is.

“Sometimes, I knew I was in the apartment,” Richie says. His voice is low, and he turns to face Eddie, not quite meeting his eyes but leaning towards him nonetheless. “And sometimes, I knew that you were there, but it was… I don’t know. It wasn’t right. There were things there that didn’t belong.”

He shakes his head, and Eddie sees his troubled expression before Richie covers it with a smile. “Fuck space clowns, am I right?”

Suddenly, Richie’s hand in his own isn’t enough. Eddie scoots forward, shoving Richie to the side until Richie gets the picture and moves over to give him space. Eddie crams himself into Richie’s chair, half in the seat and half on top of Richie. It isn’t comfortable: they’re two grown men trying to share a lawn chair. Richie’s knees dig into the backs of Eddie’s calves. One of Eddie’s elbows jabs into Richie’s ribs, and Richie squirms, laughing and swearing all at once, until they’ve found some semblance of a dignified position.

Eddie presses his forehead against Richie’s shoulder, feeling the solid presence of him. Basking in it. One of Richie’s arms wraps around Eddie’s shoulders, pulling him in.

“You shouldn’t have to go through that,” Eddie whispers. “Pennywise is dead. We’ve done enough, haven’t we?”

Richie goes still for a second. He exhales, then nudges his face into Eddie’s hair.

“I’m sorry, Eds,” he murmurs. “I know this wasn’t… When you agreed to come out to L.A. with me, you couldn’t have known all this bullshit would come with.”

It’s Eddie’s turn to freeze. This isn’t the first time that Richie has apologized for how the Deadlights have lingered, but that doesn’t stop Eddie from rearing back and smacking Richie upside the head.

“Ow!” Richie shouts. He jerks, and Eddie might’ve toppled from his precarious perch in Richie’s lap if he hadn’t grabbed hold of Richie’s shoulders to steady himself.

He levels a warning finger at Richie’s nose. “Shut the fuck up, dipshit,” he snaps. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, _don’t apologize to me_. I mean it, Richie. None of this is your fault, and I knew what I was signing up for when I packed up my shit in New York. Don’t you dare think that I don’t want to be here.”

“You can’t have known how bad—” Richie starts to protest, but cuts himself off when Eddie jabs his finger into Richie’s cheek.

“I don’t care,” Eddie says. He uses his hand to turn Richie’s chin, to force Richie to meet his eyes and see the truth there. “It’s all worth it, Rich. Every moment.”

Richie’s arms tighten around Eddie’s waist. He musters up a smile for Eddie, and it’s a small, quiet thing. “I don’t think I’d want to be living here, like this, without you,” he admits. “Even before, I was miserable. You make everything better, Eds. Even with all this Deadlights bullshit, I’ve never been happier than I am right now.”

The dawn light catches in the lenses of his glasses, obscuring his eyes for just a moment. Without thinking about it, Eddie reaches up to pull them off. Behind them, Richie’s eyes are brown. Adoring.

Aware.

“Me neither, you idiot,” Eddie tells him.

Richie leans forward to kiss him, and the morning sun is caught and held between them like precious gold. Like a promise.


End file.
